Senator PHIPPS. Then we get back to this point: Under your statement it costs you but a fraction more to produce hydraulic power in your present aqueduct plants than you expect it to cost for producing at the Boulder Canyon Dam plus the delivery charge 300 miles distant.

Mr. SCATTERGOOD. Yes, sir: because the fund has paid a good deal in connection with that aqueduct and power project and not nothing, as has so often been repeated, and because they are smaller plants and therefore cost more.

Senator PHIPPS. In the light of that, if you do double the amount of water that you had coming through your aqueduct that you now have, which would double your production of hydroelectric power, it would not cost you any more than the power you propose to make at Boulder Canyon?

Mr. SCATTERGOOD. Senator, the cost of the Boulder Canyon is $0.35 from the aqueduct plant at the present time, $0.33. It is already a little less. When the aqueduct is full and those plants completed the cost of those plants on our present Owens River aqueduct will be 0.25 cent, very much less than the Boulder Canyon power. They are not completed. Most of the investment is there, but only two-thirds of the machinery. The aqueduct water has not been developed to the full, and there has been no occasion for it: but it is gradually being developed to the full, and the basis for that development is not quite worked out at the present time.

Senator ODDIE. What estimate have you made of the percentage of loss in transmission from the Boulder Canyon?

Mr. SCATTERGOOD. The average per cent of loss is 10 to 12. I don't recollect exactly what we did find-the average energy lost.

Senator ODDIE. From Boulder Canyon to Los Angeles?
Mr. SCATTERGOOD. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. According to our schedule, two additional witnesses were contemplated to-day, but inasmuch as it is now 12 minutes after 5 and the committee has another obligation for 5.30, we will adjourn at this time, and we will resume in the morning at 10 o'clock.

(Whereupon an adjournment was taken at 5.15 o'clock p. m. until Tuesday, October 27, 1925, at 10 o'clock a. m.)

COLORADO RIVER BASIN

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1925

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION,

Los Angeles, Calif.

The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., pursuant to call of the chairman, in the ball room of the Hotel Biltmore, Los Angeles, Calif., Senator Charles L. McNary presiding.

Present: Senators McNary (chairman), Johnson, Shortridge, Ashurst, Kendrick, Pittman, Oddie, Phipps, and Dill.

The CHAIRMAN. According to the program, Shirley C. Ward is the next witness. I believe you are the chairman of the citizens' committee?

Mr. WARD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You are to address the committee upon the subject of the interest of Los Angeles in securing additional power. You may proceed. Prior thereto, Senator Ashurst has an announcement. Senator ASHURST. Mr. Chairman, I desire to announce for the purpose of the record that Mr. Fred T. Coulter, Mr. F. A. Wade, and Mr. Ralph Murphy have been duly appointed to represent the Governor of Arizona at this hearing in response to an invitation generously extended by the people of California; the governor has sent these three gentlemen.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator.

STATEMENT OF SHIRLEY C. WARD, CHAIRMAN OF CITIZENS

COMMITTEE

Mr. WARD. Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate committee. I esteem it a great privilege to have been chosen to present this aspect of this question to this committee. My theme is not exactly the interest of the city of Los Angeles, but the attitude of the city of Los Angeles as represented by the last nonpartisan expression on the problems involved in this controversy. You gentlemen realize in your large experience the difficulty of getting from a purely ex-parte hearing the truth on any problem. This city has been disturbed for a good many years, ever since the Colorado River project-ever since we began to agitate it-as to the advisability and necessity of going there. There was the attitude of the Los Angeles Bureau of Power and Light and Water, with which you are well familiar, in favor of going; there was the attitude of the southern California Edison Co. and a large coterie of sympathizers with this investment and the preservation of its investment against going; and it was almost impossible to reconcile and has been up to date, was almost impossible to reconcile those conflicting contentions. The situation

reached a point last spring when it became very important to have a semijudicial determination of the necessities and advantages and the desirability of going to the Colorado River for both water and power. As a result of the desire to have something that was not partisan, the bureau of light and power last spring asked the chamber of commerce of this city, or asked the president of the chamber of commerce, to appoint a nonpartisan, disinterested committee of leading citizens of this community for the purpose of taking testimony and looking into the merits and demerits of this proposition carefully and coming to some conclusion that would aid the entire community after hearing both sides to judge as to the merits of the controversy.

That request was granted by the chamber of commerce, and in April last the president of the chamber appointed a committee of 15 for the very purpose of trying to elucidate every phase of this problem and come to some wise and proper conclusion. That committee is composed of men-five lawyers, three bankers, four large manufacturers and industrialists, and the balance business men of standing and influence in the community. No one who knows the personnel of these men would say that it was anything but a purely representative committee representing both sides of this controversy. Probably very nearly evenly divided as to allegiance to and against the Colorado River proposition. After some six months of hearing, in which the contentions of the Los Angeles Bureau of Light and Power and Water were fully heard, all of the contentions of the Southern California Edison Co. were heard, and independent engineers, disconnected with either of these parties to this controversy, we came to a conclusion, and that conclusion was reached on last Saturday, and I have the pleasure of presenting to this committee that report. It is very brief, and I would like the privilege of reading it to you.

The Citizens Committee of Fifteen appointed by the president of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, under and pursuant to a request made by your honorable body, respectfully makes the following recommendations:

1. That the board of water and power commissioners acquire by purchase or condemnation sufficient lands and water rights in connection with the municipal water supply to the end that at all times hereafter the city's Owens River Aqueduct may be provided with water to its full capacity.

2. That the city of Los Angeles at once take and continue all steps necessary for providing from the Colorado River an adequate future water supply for the use of the city of Los Angeles and neighboring municipalities and districts, requiring the same for domestic purposes, and which elect to join in the plan, provided that the cost thereof can be equitably apportioned among and paid by the cities and communities to share in such supply.

3. That every reasonably possible effort be made at the coming session of Congress to obtain the necessary legislation to bring about the construction by the Federal Government in the immediate future, of a high dam in the Colorado River at or near Boulder Canyon, to provide large storage for the purposes of flood-control protection, domestic and irrigation water supply, and power development, and, failing this, that such dam be so constructed by the city of Los Angeles, or by that city in conjunction with other interested agencies either within or without this State.

4. That the preliminary engineering work for the building of an aqueduct from the Colorado River for domestic water supply be pursued with diligence, and that a board of consulting engineers of national repute and familiar with engineering problems of the West be employed to study, pass on, and approve the final plans for the construction of such aqueduct and incidental works, and to make a report thereon.

5. That immediately following the approval of such plans and definite authorization of the construction of such high dam, actual construction of the aqueduct be commenced and pushed as rapidly as practicable to furnish such adequate water supply.

6. That active efforts be continued to eliminate existing differences between the State of California and other States in the Colorado River watershed, relating to the impounding of, and the use of, the waters of the Colorado River, and the generation and use of the power that may be created therefrom; and that all reasonable efforts be made to harmonize all differences, to the end that we may adopt a united front in an effort to obtain for the Southwest the muchneeded Federal aid for this great Colorado River water and power project.

7. That the city of Los Angeles take immediate steps to acquire power rights on the Colorado River from which power may be generated in sufficient quantity to pump the water required from the Colorado River and to provide for the present and future needs of the city of Los Angeles and its inhabitants within the limits of the city.

The foregoing report was unanimously adopted, except, however, that Mr. Lyman and Mr. Treanor objected and excepted to the following language in paragraph 3, " at or near Boulder Canyon," and the language after the semicolon "and failing this, that such dam be so constructed by the city of Los Angeles, or by the city in conjunction with other interested agencies either within or without this State."

The entire paragraph 3 in form acceptable to them reads as follows:

3. That every reasonably possible effort be made at the coming session of Congress to obtain the necessary legislation to bring about the construction by the Federal Government, in the immediate future, of a high dam in the Colorado River, to provide large storage for the purpose of flood protection, domestic and irrigation water supply and power development.

Now, the principal point I wish to make is this: We look at this whole matter from the economic standpoint as to the necessity or advantages and the advisability of going to the Colorado River. We heard both sides of the controversy and there seemed to be irreconcilable difference between them as to those interested. We did what we did once before, we obtained the services of the chief engineer of the railroad commission of California, who has probably had more experience and knows more of the supply and demand for power and the cost of power in this end of the State than any other man in the State. We finally induced the railroad commission to permit us to have the services of that man, to study all phases of the problem and make his report. And I commend to your most careful study that report, which will be filed with you. The summary of the whole report is found in these three short paragraphs which I would like to read to you. First, the demand for electrical energy in southern California is increasing at such a rapid rate that immediate steps should be taken by those responsible for the power supply toward obtaining developments of the Colorado River. Proposition No. 1.

No. 2. That there should be no difficulty nor economic waste under coordinated development in the conservation of the power to be produced from the proposed Boulder Canyon development when this will become available.

Third. Energy from the Colorado River is the cheapest hydroelectric energy that can be secured for southern California.

Those, to our minds, were the determining factors in making this committee a unit in favor of the necessity of going to the river.

The CHAIRMAN. Has Los Angeles exhausted all its water supplies? Mr. WARD. I stated a moment ago that we have now-we have been having for the last six years an average of 264 second-feet in our canal. We are rapidly reaching a point where there is going to be a great shortage of water.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you any other water resources than the Colorado River?

Mr. WARD. We have other resources, very limited. The only resource of known ability to acquire is the amount of water that can be had in the Owens River Acqueduct. We believe it is obtainable, and we are going after it as rapidly as possible. There is a great controversy on between the citizens of this city and the property owners and residents of Owen River Valley. We have had some very tense situations arise out of that controversy.

The CHAIRMAN. Where do you propose to take the water out of the Colorado River to use for domestic purposes?

Mr. WARD. It is to be taken out somewhere below the Needles, I understand, and is to be percolated through a large sand and gravel bed and is to be pumped out of trenches some-from 10 to 20, probably 50 feet below the river level, expecting all that water to percolate into this pumping basin, and to be elevated from that pumping basin.

The CHAIRMAN. What elevation are you required to pump the water?

Mr. WARD. I think the total elevation is about 1,700 feet, and to be pumped in four or five different levels of about three hundred and some-odd feet to each pumping.

The CHAIRMAN. Could the use of water stand a charge of this pumping?

Mr. WARD. I am not an authority upon that subject, but the authorities on which we relied is entirely satisfactory to us that it can stand that pumping charge. It seems a heavy charge to be placed upon water, but it has been worked out by men whom we think are entirely competent to do it, and in their judgment it can be done. And I would like to say this, that the calculations of the engineering department of the city of Los Angeles-that it was the same talent that we had when we built the Owens River Acqueduct have given us this assurance that this project, the water project, would not cost the city of Los Angeles per capita and would not be a burden upon the city of Los Angeles per capita greater than the Owens River project was when it was completed per capita.

The CHAIRMAN. Where do you propose to get your power for pumping?

Mr. WARD. We propose to get the power for pumping entirely from Boulder Canyon dam.

The CHAIRMAN. Then you are presenting the Boulder Canyon dam feature of the reservoir?

Mr. WARD. That is our report here in favor of it. Now, there are two men on our committee that did not favor our specifying the location of the dam; they felt that they had not reached a point where they were satisfied, but out of the eleven members of the committee there were nine, from the evidence before us at that time. believed that the Boulder Canyon dam was the site to be developed.